Larry Light, Marketer Behind Revival of McDonald’s, Dies at 83

Larry Light, Marketer Behind Revival of McDonald’s, Dies at 83 - The New York Times

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Larry Light, Marketer Behind Revival of McDonald’s, Dies at 83

A branding expert, he deployed the “I’m lovin’ it” campaign globally in 2003 to bring customers and sales back to the fast-food giant when it was in a slump.

Larry Light, a McDonald’s executive who oversaw a worldwide marketing campaign in the early 2000s that was built around the slogan “I’m lovin’ it,” which revived that fast-food chain when it was in the doldrums, died on June 24 in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 83.

His daughter Laura Light said the cause was aspiration pneumonia, adding that Parkinson’s disease was listed as a secondary cause.

When he was hired in 2002 as the global chief marketing officer of McDonald’s, Mr. Light was a consultant who had built his expertise in branding over more than 20 years as an advertising executive.

At McDonald’s, he found a corporate colossus that had lost its way with some consumers, especially young ones. Earnings were falling. The stock price was down. Its advertising was uninspired.

“We recognized that mass marketing of mass messages to masses of people via mass media was a mass mistake,” Mr. Light wrote in 2020 in the online publication Branding Strategy Insider. “McDonald’s had been managed as a mass-market, mass-media, mass-message brand. Our challenge was to lead a big brand, but not as a mass brand.”

Mr. Light said he had wanted a marketing message that did not tell McDonald’s customers what to think.

“Don’t tell me I ‘deserve a break today.’ I know I do,” he wrote, referring to an earlier successful ad campaign. Instead, he sought one that spoke in the voice of a consumer.

He invited 14 ad agencies in 10 major countries to compete to create a campaign that would travel across borders. After a four-month beauty contest, a German agency, Heye & Partner, part of DDB Worldwide, won the pageant with “I’m lovin’ it,” or “Ich liebe es.”

The slogan became part of a global marketing plan targeted to remind customers why they loved McDonald’s and how its food fit into their lives. Agencies around the world created commercials that appeared in more than 100 countries, all conforming to the “I’m lovin’ it” theme.

“We didn’t need the same advertising everywhere as long as they were conveying the same purpose,” said Joan Kiddon, who began working with Mr. Light in 1976 and is the president of Arcature, the consulting firm he opened in 1989 and stepped down from to work at McDonald’s.

At internal meetings before the campaign was unveiled in September 2003, Mr. Light said, “everyone applauds.” But, he told the Knight-Ridder News Service, some of the same people told him over cocktails, “Larry, this better work.” Some franchisees reminded him that his time could be short if the campaign failed.

In the United States, Justin Timberlake starred in a commercial with teenagers surfing and skateboarding to a hip-hop beat and recorded a separate song, “I’m Lovin’ It,” with an accompanying video. Stars in other countries played similar roles in ads. The company also hired the skateboarder Tony Hawk to reach young people. The now familiar earworm, the five-tone jingle “ba-da-ba-ba-ba,” was introduced in the ads.

Sales rebounded. In the first three months of 2004, McDonald’s outlets around the world attracted 2.3 million more customers daily than in the same period the year before.

The Wall Street Journal called “I’m lovin’ it” one of the top ad campaigns of 2003.

“Its most recent work, using the ‘Smile’ slogan, made consumers grimace,” The Journal wrote. “But the new one has the makings of a hit.”

In a speech to Advertising Age in June 2004, Mr. Light said, “‘I’m lovin’ it’ is not a mere advertising slogan; it’s an expression of our new brand attitude. In less than one year, people’s attitudes changed from giving us the cold shoulder to becoming suddenly cool.”

The turnaround at McDonald’s included menu changes, like adding salads and removing “supersize” portions, and the founding of World Children’s Day, which raises money for children’s charities.

Marvin Lawrence Light was born on June 12, 1941, in Montreal. His father, Louis, was a confectionary manufacturer and a builder of residential homes; his mother, Celia (Sheinman) Light, oversaw the household.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from McGill University in 1962, Mr. Light received a Ph.D. in psychology three years later from Ohio State University.

He was hired by BBDO Advertising, where, over 15 years, he rose to executive vice president. He became known for his knowledge and innovative use of market research, including studies that used focus groups and surveys to help companies understand the problems consumers had with their products and to find solutions.

H&R Block, for example, improved on its services by addressing 17 problems identified by consumers about tax preparation in general and the company’s methods in particular, Ms. Kiddon said.

In 1981, Mr. Light moved to another agency, Ted Bates Worldwide, as an executive vice president and oversaw the advertising for the M&M/Mars candy account. Five years later, he became chairman and chief executive of Bates’s overseas division.

In 1989, two years after Bates’s merger with Backer & Spielvogel — both were subsidiaries of Saatchi & Saatchi — Mr. Light started Arcature with Don Zuckert, a former Bates executive. Mr. Zuckert left in 1995.

Mr. Light spent the next 35 years at Arcature, advising companies like IBM, Intel, Quaker Oats, Chipotle, Nissan and Visa. McDonald’s was his client when he joined the company.

Jim Kirk, a marketing columnist, wrote in 2002 in The Chicago Tribune that McDonald’s was taking a risk by not hiring a “corporate heavyweight with practical hands-on experience.”

But Jack M. Greenberg, McDonald’s chairman and chief executive at the time, said in a statement that in Mr. Light “we have selected one of the world’s best thought leaders in brand strategy.”

Mr. Light left McDonald’s in 2005 and returned to Arcature. He left the firm again in 2012 to take another corporate job, as the chief brands officer of IHG Hotels & Resorts, a post he held until 2014. He had previously consulted for the company.

In addition to his daughter Laura, Mr. Light is survived by his wife, Joyce (Wax) Light; another daughter, Michelle Light; his brothers Irwin and Bruce; and two grandchildren.

He and Ms. Kiddon collaborated on four books, three of them on branding, including “Six Rules of Brand Revitalization” (2009). And Mr. Light spoke widely about branding and various companies’ strategies, including that of McDonald’s, which has introduced other ad campaigns but still uses “I’m lovin’ it.”

Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades. More about Richard Sandomir